


His Words

by Avon7



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4885972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avon7/pseuds/Avon7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A farewell, and an acceptance of a challenge. Set in 2028. Warning - I'd only seen S1-3 when I wrote this so it is set in what I've come to call Avonverse or is AU.  I still haven't seen S7 or  much of S6 and choose not to.  I know snippets of spoilers from other series, but didn't mostly include them as I didn't want to research them and so find out more spoilers. This was written in response to a prompt from Raebard's Partners ficathon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Words

_And on the days that followed, I listened to his words,  
I strained to understand him, I chased his thoughts like birds  
\-- 'Secret Journey', The Police _

Senator Samuel Seaborn looked down at the folded sheets he held. Their deep cream was bright against his black suit and the four folded pages carried a weight that couldn’t be explained. He glanced around. People were still arriving and the ushers were beginning to set out more chairs. There was time. He smoothed open the sheets and ran his eyes over the words he’d written back in California. There was no need, had been no need even to bring the notes - the speech was not so much learned as a part of him. He carried the sheets with him and would later take them up to the lectern with him only in deference to Toby’s dictum:

“You don’t speak from memory, you don’t speak from the heart – you speak from the damned words!”

Here and there phrases jumped out at him… a teacher, a scholar and a fighter…. a proud inheritance of liberal democracy…. at the heart of the political strategy of the two Bartlett campaigns… lectured at the University of Virginia and New York State College… author of two books, ‘The Beginning of Barbarianism’ and ‘Of Words and Speech’…. a righteous man who believed in the obligation of Tzedakah…. my friend…

The lines of writing began to waver and words run together. Sam closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed tears for what seemed like the thousandth time in the last two months. He folded the paper back up, and looked around. Josh was sitting beside him. He had bowed his head and was half-whispering a prayer for the dead. 

“-grant perfect rest under the sheltering wings of Your Presence to the one who has passed…. May their soul be bound up in the bond of life.”

The words came slowly and Josh seemed to be struggling to keep going. Sam moved a little so their shoulders touched. After a moment he felt a return of pressure as Josh leaned against him. Sam wished he could put his arm around him without risking it being a front-page picture the next day. Sometimes, Sam thought his friend has been sitting Shiva ever since his sister’s death almost sixty years ago and he hated the toll each new death seemed to take on him. Josh felt steadier against him now, though, and the prayer was coming more easily. 

Sam looked past Josh. Two seats on, Mandy was watching Josh with as much concern as Sam and they exchanged guarded half smiles. Sam wondered, as he had wondered for the last ten years, what was going on between Josh and Mandy and at what point best friend status was going to get him an explanation. 

To the left of Sam was an empty seat, waiting for CJ. He could see her down in the front rows with the Bartletts, her height making her stand out. Somebody’s baby was in her arms and she was laughing at something Zoë had said. In her late sixties, she was beautiful and still managing a casual elegance while dealing with whatever was thrown at her. She was starting to hide her hands, though, as arthritis from her college softball days set in, and Sam knew she worried at every missed appointment, stumbled word or lost key for fear that she might be facing her father’s journey.

The remaining assistants were clustered behind him and both Ginger’s tears and the others’ comforting words formed a soft background to Sam’s thoughts. Strange how he still thought of them as ‘the assistants’ when not one of them was working at that level now; or maybe not so strange, he decided. Today was not about who they were or what they had achieved. It was about the bonds that still held them together, scattered across the country as they were. This, like all the other funerals and memorials services, was a day of mourning but also a day to celebrate friendship. 

Sometimes it seemed like it took a death to bring them all together again. At the afternoon tea following Ron Butterfield’s cremation, Mallory had come up to him to give him a hug and said, ‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” For a moment, Sam had stood there frozen, crumbling a scone in one hand, before he could muster his voice for an answer. He’d suddenly been stricken by the truth of it. He’d last seen Mallory at Bonnie’s funeral and he probably wouldn’t see her again until someone else died. Just for a minute, their eyes had met and he thought that both of them had seen the long list of deaths stretching ahead of them as two of the youngest.

 

Down at the front of the auditorium Sam saw a tall grey-haired woman conferring with a young woman in a calf-length flowered dress and an orange tallit. Sam had met Rabbi Auerbach several times over the last few months and her tallit made her an easy pick, but it was only when the older woman made a gesture of impatience that brought Toby vividly to mind that Sam recognised Ruth. Although their paths had crossed at the hospital, he had tried to leave Toby’s family to their own mourning so, in truth, Toby’s sister was a voice to him far more than a face. It was she who had organised the memorial service with the help of many of the people who formed a part of Toby’s life. The loosely formed committee had hopscotched across the country in an electronic web of arguments, favours, inspirations and memories. It had reminded Sam of nothing as much as the first fevered week of a presidential campaign. Through it, Sam had come to be familiar with Ruth’s voice - both spoken and written. She didn’t have Toby’s talent or his passion for writing, but she shared his love of words, his impatience with a world that took too long to understand and a darkly self-directed sense of humour.

To the right of where the two women were talking stood the remembrance table. The idea had come from Josh, but every one of them had contributed. The table was covered in a purple cloth edged with gold fringing – Donna’s idea: Ginger’s making. As Donna had said, it was lucky the Lakers’ colours were so suitable. Sam had had to smile at the sheer Donna-ishness of this comment when Josh passed it on. Across the back of the table were ranged three brass menorahs; all three were treasured possessions of different members of Toby’s family. There were no candles in them but a box of white candles lay in front of them. It was an old box, chipped on the corners and with cracks in its varnish. It had once belonged to the Josiah Bartlett who signed the Declaration of Independence. Beside it, a small brass lamp that CJ had picked up in Cairo burnt with a flickering yellow flame. In flowing calligraphy the words of the rabbis were written on a scroll at its base – ‘The soul of a human being is a light honouring G_d’. 

The rest of the table was covered with mementos of Toby’s life – a Parker fountain pen; his siddur, well-thumbed and worn; one of the rubber balls he used to bounce off Sam’s office wall; a signed baseball; his college basketball singlet; his last iMac, with the screen on and the cursor blinking at the bottom of a page of writing – Sam couldn’t see the words but knew they would be Bartlett’s third State of the Union; photos of family and friends; his White House security pass; a stack of cheap dime store red and black notebooks filled with Toby’s slightly cramped cursive; the White House teddy bear Donna had brought him in the hospital; a packet of Frito-Lay peanuts; a faded and yellowing copy of the student newspaper Toby had edited in his third year at college; and his tallit. There were speeches too – Martin Luther King, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Sam Seaborn and Toby Zeigler. Ruth had pointed out that almost no one would be able to see these things, but Josh had said that wasn’t the point. “It’s not, it’s not about people seeing – it’s about us knowing it’s there. It’s like democracy –you know, there’s tons of democracy we don’t have to do, because no one really sees it, but we do it because-" he’d begun to pace by this point “- because it still matters.”

There was a stir beside Sam and he turned to see what was going on. Donna, having collected her husband, had made her way to her seat beside Josh and was now busy straightening his collar and removing a speck of lint from his suit. 

“Donnatella, the moment you lick a handkerchief I’m out of here,” Josh hissed. 

Donna paid no attention, smiling past him to Sam.

“Hey, Sam. You all ready?” She nodded towards the speech folded on his lap.

Sam nodded back, a little uncertainly. Some part of him was sure he wasn’t. Maybe he just wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the man whose words he had measured himself by for so many years.

The flow of people into the auditorium was finally beginning to slow and now the background of a Mozart concerto could be heard over the scuffle of feet and subdued words of greetings. Sam unfolded and folded his pages once more. He caught Josh’s eye and Josh gave him a smile that said ‘Yes, I am okay, and it was a long time ago and stop _worrying_ ’. CJ was making her way up to their seats and Sam stood for her kiss as she reached him. He held her for a moment longer than usual, offering what comfort he could. It was CJ who had known Toby the longest – known him back when, as Toby would have put it, ‘You were still getting your recess money stolen.’ – and she had looked utterly forsaken that last night when they had left the room for his family. 

“He was so proud of you, Spanky,” CJ whispered.

Sam wanted to say something, but the words stuck and there was no time. CJ moved back and reached a hand past him to clasp Josh’s shoulder as the lighting changed to a spotlight on the stage and ‘Yizkor Requiem’ by Thomas Beveridge swelled out and filled the hall.

The first speaker was Governor Rashan Jackson of New York. Sam watched him walk out into the spotlight and wait until the cantor and horns of the ‘Reader’s Kaddish’ faded to silence. He looked confident standing there, holding the moment, but then to a man who had won a gubernatorial election as both an African-American and an atheist a couple of thousand mourners could hardly be intimidating. He spoke well; Sam, who would forever evaluate all speeches and all speakers as though he was still a professional speechwriter, was impressed by his simple acknowledgement of his grief and of what he had owed Toby. Toby had led his campaign in 2020 in the face of the pundits and polls that said a Democrat would be a hard enough sell. Sam remembered the phone call on the night Jackson’s candidacy had been announced.

“It’s an unwinnable fight, Sam, but we’re going to win it. And do you know why? Because it needs to be won!”

They had indeed won it – won it with a twenty per cent swing and a team put together of just about every worthwhile mind Toby had ever met. Toby had been his chief of staff until his first heart attack and had retained a role as an advisor during the campaign for his second term. Sam knew that when Toby looked at Rashan Jackson he saw the real thing, just as they had all seen it all those years ago in the cold of New Hampshire. Sam had met Governor Jackson at the National Convention but had only really got to know him during the last few weeks when they would meet occasionally in hospital corridors during the quiet hours of the morning. 

Listening to Governor Jackson Sam wished suddenly that he was beginning the service, rather than ending it. To sit through a dozen other people’s stories of loss and memory and then to have to speak… Sam felt the breath tighten in his chest. In his mind, he heard Toby’s growl, ‘Don’t you screw up my speech!’, even as the Governor finished to a silence that was its own ovation. He walked over to the remembrance table and picked up one of the candles. Ceremonially, he lit it from the flame of the lamp then placed it in one of the menorah. He bowed his head and said something – not a blessing, perhaps a farewell – before leaving the stage.

Governor Jackson was the first of many speakers and readers. Rabbi Auerbach spoke of his faith and his generous and warm meeting of the obligation of Tzedakah. She wasn’t a talented speaker but Sam picked out one phrase to hold. “Toby gave of himself.” In those words he saw the funeral with military honours for a homeless vet that President Bartlett had told of, the hours Toby had spent with him teaching him to craft not just a speech but a political statement and Toby sitting with Bonnie helping her write a speech for her daughter’s wedding, when they both knew she wouldn’t be there to deliver it.

Toby’s youngest nephew read from the book of Wisdom –  
_‘But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace….’_  
– and Sam held CJ’s hand and tried to hide his tears. Toby was no longer in pain, no longer frustrated by his weakness, no longer dependent on oxygen for his breath and on others for all his care, but Sam was bereft and he knew with bitter certainty that he would wish Toby back if he could. 

Then the next movement of the ‘Reader’s Kaddish’ was playing and CJ was disentangling his fingers as she got ready to do her reading. She smiled down at him as she stood. 

“If my mascara has run I’m going to sue Estee Lauder – you’ll act for me, won’t you, Spanky?”

Sam nodded. “Go get ‘em, Ceej.”

As she stood at the microphone, confidently adjusting it for her height, there were crazy echoes of the White House pressroom and Sam remembered other days when he’d watched CJ hide her own tears to stand in front of a crowd and say what had to be said. 

“Good morning, folks. In 1976, Toby and I stood together in Madison Square Garden listening to Barbara Jordan give the keynote address for the Democratic National Convention. In honour of my friend Toby who was a writer, a democrat and a patriot I’d like to read you some parts of that speech.

_‘First, we believe in equality for all and privileges for none. This is a belief that each American, regardless of background, has equal standing in the public forum -- all of us. Because we believe this idea so firmly, we are an inclusive rather than an exclusive party. Let everybody come.…_

_We have a positive vision of the future, founded on the belief that the gap between the promise and reality of America can one day be finally closed. We believe that._

_A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good. A government is invigorated when each one of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation.’_

Congresswoman Barbara Jordan asked us two questions that day. Who will speak for America? Who will speak for the common good? The answer, my friends, was Toby Zeigler.”

CJ stepped away from the podium and walked over to the menorah. She stopped for a moment, her hands pressed to her face before managing to take a candle and light it. By the light of the candles, Sam could see tears running down her face as she stretched to place it. He doubted if she even knew that she had made the sign of the cross before she walked away.

There were speakers from each part of Toby’s life – students, writers, cousins, politicians, an ex-wife.... Each shared some memories of the Toby they had known and lit a candle in his memory. Annie Bartlett, or Ann as she asked fruitlessly to be called, spoke on behalf of her grandfather and her family. She hadn’t known Toby well during the White House years, but had got to know him when she came to work in Washington. As well as speaking of what her grandfather had owed Toby, she told a story that Sam hadn’t heard before – nor her family, judging from the slight stir in the Bartlett row – of going to Toby in her first year in town when a congressman was harassing her. As she said with a smile, “I’ve never seen anyone hit someone so hard with words.”

Rabbi Auerbach ushered Toby’s great nieces and nephews up on stage to light a candle each. While they did so, one of his nieces played Mozart’s violin concerto in D Major. She played in the New York Philharmonic and, though he had tried to hide it behind nonchalance, Toby had been proud and thrilled. Sam smiled a little – the smallest great niece had escaped her big brother minder and was now sitting patiently on the floor at the violinist’s feet, waiting for Mummy. They walked off hand in hand. Sam was suddenly startled by Josh poking him.

“Donna says you need to get ready.”

Sam had somehow missed where they were handing out the Order of Services so he peeked over CJ’s shoulder at hers. Donna was right. One of Toby’s writing students was finishing his tribute. Then the choir from Toby’s temple would be singing the 23rd Psalm. After that, his publisher would be reading a section from Toby’s newest and unpublished book and then it was Sam concluding the service. He smiled thanks at Donna and wondered if she ever minded still having to take care of them when she was the now chief of staff to the Senate Leader.

With one small fraction of his mind, Sam listened to the psalm as he folded and unfolded his notes and remembered the words. He wished he could shake off the feeling that they weren’t good enough or, no, that they weren’t _right_. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt Toby wanted more. He remembered the day of wind and storm about ten days before he died when Toby had told him to stop pretending. 

“I’m not going to get better… I’m not even going to get sort of okay. This is it. We know that things don’t always turn out all right, Sam.”

It was a struggle for Toby to talk and Sam hadn’t wanted him to, but he had brushed away Sam’s concern. He had to stop sometimes to get his breath and to gather strength for the next sentence but he had kept talking.

“President Bartlett and Leo, Sam – we learnt from the best. We owe them the best too…. America’s facing a hard winter. We’re losing our coastal towns to the sea. There are a dozen new countries every year with missiles they’re not safe to use…. We’ve got schools that are falling down and kids who are learning more about hate than about literature…. They dragged a 17-year-old boy nine miles behind a pickup in New Jersey for kissing a man. Our enemies hate us and most of our friends wish that they could not afford to be…. Charities are still buying our foster kids suitcases … and if you’re born the wrong colour or in the wrong place in America you’ve got a better chance of being killed by a gun than of going to college.”

Toby had stopped there, breathless and panting. Sam had laid a hand on his arm and watched as the blue slowly faded from around his mouth. He hadn’t known what to say and had simply sat with Toby until he’d drifted into one of his frequent sleeps. He still didn’t know what to say, but he knew Toby needed him to say more than the well-written summary of his career he was holding.

As the music finished Sam got up and made his way down to wait at the steps on the right of the stage. Campbell Johnson, Toby’s editor, was on stage reading a chapter from Toby’s third book, ‘The Futures of America’. Sam loved the flow of Toby’s writing and his breadth of thought, but he didn’t listen. He leant against the wall in the near darkness and tried to find the words that he thought Toby wanted. 

A day or two later Sam had again sat alone with Toby. Josh was driving CJ back to her hotel and Toby’s family had gone to temple. Toby had asked for an update on the passage of the Education Bill through the Senate and on whether the Democrats amendment would get up. Toby had counted votes and pointed out alliances and deals that could be made. He was struggling for breath by the time he’d finished and had to lie back and rest. He lay there for a few minutes with his eyes closed while Sam looked over some notes for a speech he was giving in Sacramento on the Monday.

“What’s next?”

Sam had been a little startled. “In the Senate?”

“For you.”

“I’m planning to run again in November – you know that. There’s still more to do,” he said with a shrug. With a Republican Congress and President there would always be more to do – and a lot that couldn’t be done.

Toby shook his head and fixed Sam with the sort of intense gaze that took Sam right back to the first few weeks of the Bartlett campaign. Truth to tell, he’d been half-scared of Toby for quite a while back then.

“Yeah, there’s still more for you to do.”

Sam had muttered something about trying, not quite sure what to say.

“I wish I could be here…” Toby trailed off and seemed to forget the end of the sentence. He did that now sometimes. Sam wasn’t sure if it was the drugs or the exhaustion. He sat and waited while Toby rested for a moment, eyes closed and breath coming more heavily. When he started talking again it was as though they’d moved on several sentences. 

“Promise me you’ll listen to Josh. He hasn’t got a lot of sense, but he’s got more than you.” Another pause. “No hopeless quests – stand for what you believe in, but you can’t win everything…. Don’t give up what matters… it’ll break you. It took Bartlett close enough to the edge and you’re not him.”

 

Suddenly, Rabbi Auerbach was at the lectern calling upon the audience to stand for the final tribute and there was no more time to try and decide what Toby wanted of him.

Despite the lingering feel of unease with the speech, Sam stood easily at the lectern. Speeches and audiences were his life, after all. Unhurriedly, he laid out the pages he’d written and took out his glasses. He glanced up and surveyed the audience. Words Jed Bartlett had once given him came back. 

_There’s no formula, Sam; every audience is different. You have to know them – and to do that you have to let them know you. You have to open up, let them see what hurts you, what excites you, what you care about._

He looked out across the rows. So many people Toby had touched; so many people here to honour Toby, here to remember him… students, interns, a brother, two sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, political opponents, people from his temple, his publishers, congressmen, senators. Amidst all the unknown faces and barely known faces Sam searched for his friends. Josh and CJ stood next to each other now and they were holding hands as they waited for him to say it for all of them. Beside them, Donna was in her husband’s arms and then Mandy stood alone, as always. Ginger, Kathy, Carol and Margaret were behind them with Ginger crying again. Zoë Bartlett, middle-aged now, stood in the front row with three teenagers between her and Charlie. Ellie sat beside her mother, who stood now only with difficulty and a frame, while Annie was the only representative of the most far-flung branch of the Bartlett family. As he looked at all the parts of his life assembled once more to farewell a friend, Sam felt again the sting of all the people who weren’t there – Jed Bartlett, Leo, Bonnie, Mrs Landingham, the first Bartlett great-grandchild, Bruno Gianelli, Oliver Babbish, Governor Hoynes, Ron Butterfield, Nancy McNally, Justice Mendoza… and Toby.

Sam looked down at his notes and then gently folded them up. He took off his glasses and carefully put them down before looking straight out into the audience where Josh and CJ stood.

“Right now, Toby’s going to be kicking some clouds. If a rubber ball shoots out of the sky and zonks me on the head, I’ll know where it comes from. You see, I’m about to do something Toby strongly disapproved of.… He was a speechwriter and he believed that good speeches were written. Toby Zeigler taught me how to write speeches, and I wrote one for him. I did. I worked hard at it. I wrote it over and over again because I wanted it to do justice to all he had taught me. I even made sure I used plenty of punctuation and verbs – imagery not so much.”

There was a ripple of amusement around the room and Sam stopped to smile.

“It’s a good speech; fine words for a fine man. There will be a place for it one day, but it isn’t now.”

There were puzzled looks from some people, but he saw Josh nod and CJ gave him her trademark grin, still as unexpectedly gamin as ever.

“Toby deserves so much more than a speech because he was so much more than a speechwriter. He taught me far more than just how to write speeches. Toby taught me how I should live; he taught me the risk of failure, but he also taught me that sometimes you do have to fight the battles you know you can’t win.”

Sam heard the power and excitement in Toby’s voice as he’d proclaimed the need to win the unwinnable in New York. Sam saw the Toby of the last two months, hooked up to oxygen and exhausted by a ten minute conversation, but pushing him still about the new education budget and what was he going to do next. He swallowed hard and tightened his hand on the wood of the lectern. It was a moment or two before he had steadied his voice enough to continue.

“Toby was my boss, my mentor, my adopted older brother when I needed one, my friend. I loved him. He taught me about passion, about determination, about being yourself and not just being who other people expect you to be.”

Sam paused again – long enough that he could see people begin to look concerned. Standing at the microphone looking out into that auditorium, the first of many he’d stand in during the months to come, he smelt again the disinfectant of the hospital and heard the hiss of Toby’s oxygen. It was the third last night of Toby’s life and the last time he’d see Toby conscious. Toby’s words had been slurred and faint but he’d gripped Sam’s arm tightly.

“You have to speak for America, for the common good. We need you, Sam…”

Sam took a deep breath and looked out through tears across the room to find his friends again. This wasn’t the moment to announce a candidacy, but it was the time to tell friends that he was finally ready to step out into the unknown as Toby had urged.

“Even in his last few weeks Toby was challenging me to be the best I could be; just as he did when he taught me to be a speechwriter, not just a writer. I was scared then and I’m scared now. We all fear the unknown darkness, but with courage and with compassion for those he left behind Toby went forward into it last week. For weeks, I listened to his words without understanding what he was asking me to do. I know now and, Toby, I’m going to try. I will speak of the common good; I will speak for our country.”

Sam walked away from the podium, went to the table and lit the last candle. As he placed it in the menorah, the candle flames blazed against the darkened auditorium and Sam whispered some words for Toby,

“‘The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world…”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Notes:  
> *The final line is a quotation by Felix Adler.
> 
> *the full text of Barbara Jordan’s speech can be found here - http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barbarajordan1976dnc.html (as either text or mp3)  
> and some additional Information about the woman herself can be found here –  
> http://www.elf.net/bjordan/default.asp
> 
> • Tzedakah = charity  
> • Siddur = Jewish prayer book  
> • Tallit = Jewish prayer shawl, and yes they do come in orange. There’s an Israeli site that sells them in every colour under the sun – but I bet Toby’s is the more traditional cream.


End file.
